Just Not Sure About… O Doesn’t Matter

All the vampires are traumatised! One in ten
will hang from the ceiling leaving the rest
crying at its funeral as they blame the government, which did
start all this thousands of years ago, correct—
but you didn’t have to laugh at each other so much did you!
You wake up
decades later being screamed at by another blood
sucker and you understand it all
immediately: “None of us had an escape, but I
could have made this sunnier, because laughing
at the painter got it everywhere, whilst I was only desperate
to not be seen as cold-blooded the whole time: that was it. That was my whole identity. While the officials
still didn’t care.” And in the mirror
during the night? You still don’t recognise yourself
upside down responsible for clipping your own wings. Instead you scream
back at the blood sucker beside you, which never lands
in your old tongue: O how you wish
you had an abstract art form now. How you understand the wise die young.